Trees continue to die

Norfolk Island Pines, it appears, are dying faster than the City of Melbourne can replace them.

The council says there is nothing wrong with the soil and, when it last year replaced a batch of dead trees, it speculated that it may have been over-watering.

A spokesperson said: “The City of Melbourne has a tree health monitoring program to assess the health, vigour and well-being of all our trees in open space.”

Docklands News counted a further four dead trees since the council last replaced casualties.

“Soil testing confirmed the deceased trees were not adversely affected by salinity, so we have reduced our watering of the new trees and we will continue to conduct ongoing testing of their health.”